SMBs Can Feel the Speed of 10G Affordably

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10G has been around since 2002, but it’s been largely the exclusive purview of enterprise data centers. No longer. Growing numbers of SMBs are now turning to 10 Gigabit for their server and storage networks.

Small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) well understand the impact that faster speed has on user experience. We live in a world where the competition is only a mouse click away and speed gets valued in the coin of customer satisfaction. It can be the difference between business success and failure.

As SMBs grow, so do their bandwidth requirements. Data now doubles each couple of years, with the rise of converged networks, unified communications, virtualization, and the Internet of Things putting increasing demand on SMB IP networks. And the growing traffic from video and file sharing means that the need for speed in the company’s local area network will only increase in the future.

Network infrastructures trying to handle this unprecedented crunch can easily sputter and wind up undermining the ability of SMBs to serve a larger number of wireless devices.

That’s especially true for networks that still rely on Gigabit Ethernet (GbE), since it takes longer to complete each data transfer. All of which is why SMBs are now shifting to 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE). Besides offering connectivity speeds that are 10 times faster than Gigabit Ethernet, 10GbE can improve storage delivery performance up to 10 gigabits per second.

With 10GbE, companies are better equipped to handle increasingly heavy IT and data center needs and avoid encountering potentially disruptive, if not crippling, data bottlenecks.

The price is right

Until recently, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. SMBs facing this sort of unprecedented increase in digital traffic would have been stuck. 10GbE offered a level of functionality that came at a price beyond most SMB budgets.

In fact, it’s only since 2013 that 10GbE growth rates have begun to accelerate. Indeed, the growing adoption of 10GbE Copper NIC adapters by server and storage vendors has opened up an opportunity for 10 Gigabit connectivity deployment for customers of all sizes.

For example, the cost of an average 10G Ethernet port averaged about $5,000 in 2004, a price that was beyond the reach of most SMBs. These days, SMBs can choose seven 10GBASE-T switches from NETGEAR with prices starting around or below the $1,000 mark and upgrade slower infrastructure to avoid downtime, lost opportunities, and even business failure.

That’s especially good news for SMBs. Now they can add affordable switching alternatives to gain reliable 10 Gigabit networking connectivity and remain on a par with larger enterprises who can buy that kind of technology without worrying about the budgetary impact.

Now management can demand – and come to expect – that their data networks also will be able to handle any spikes in video and mobile data.